Small tour firms are facing huge losses as travel demand for the lunar new year season has slowed.

Vietravel estimates to serve 30,000 customers

As plane ticket prices often increase near the Tet Holiday, firms often spend hundreds of millions of VND on buying tickets, reserving accommodation and booking relevant services in advance, hoping that demand picks up as Tet nears.

However, small firms are finding it hard to push sales. A director of a tour firm in HCM City said, "Both the sales of inbound and outbound tours are lower than expected and we’ve booked a lot of tickets. Small firms have been hit hard this time."

It is estimated that travel agents have to spent VND10m (USD476) in advance per customer for a tour to Thailand and earn profits of only around VND1m. Tran The Dung, deputy head of The He Tre Tourism Company said profits of VND700,000 per passenger on a tour to Hue were common so they would incur huge losses if they had more than ten leftover tickets.

Golden Smile Travel reported that number of tours to other Asian countries fell by 40 percent compared to last year.

In January, Vietnam Peace Tour JSC said they had 30 percent of tickets left. Hoang Le Quyen, deputy head of Peace Tour JSC, said, "Maybe passengers have already travelled a lot in the year so demand has actually fallen now."

Meanwhile large firms such as Vietravel said their tours were still being sold and estimated that the company would serve 30,000 customers during the Tet Holiday. Saigontourist also expects to serve 27,000 customers, 15 percent up on last year.